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Petrie

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Petrie Surname Genealogy

Petrie
is
a pet form of the first name Peter.As a surname it originated in the northeast of Scotland.Some think that the name was brought by
Flemish artisans who arrived in the 12th and 13th centuries.The Petrie name is pronounced Paitrie in
Aberdeen.

Scotland.
Early
Petrie records suggest that the name moved in the northeast of
Scotland from Morayshire through Banff into Aberdeen and Kincardine
(part of
present-day Angus).

Hendrie Petrie was a prominent businessman in Aberdeen in
the early 1600’s.His large house there,
known as the Miscellany
of the Spalding Club in Aberdeen, was used for public entertainment.Robert Petrie, a burgess in Dundee, died
there in 1616.George
Petrie was the Provost of Montrose in
1625 (and the Petrie name remained prominent
in Montrose).

Petries
from the northeast of Scotland included:

James
Petrie, a wool weaver who was born in 1755 at Coleburn in
Morayshire.

Alexander
Petrie and Janet
Spence who were married at Premnay in Aberdeenshire in 1765.They were the forebears of the Petries of
Kennethmont in Aberdeenshire.

Arthur Petrie from
Aberdeenshire who
was Bishop of Moray from 1778 to 1787.

while
David Petrie married Helen Cock at
Lerwick in the Shetland Isles in 1710.

The
largest Petrie
numbers in the 1881 census were in Forfarshire (now Angus) – in Dundee,
Forfar
and St. Vigeans (near Arbroath).
Sweden.Robert Petrie, son of George
Petrie the
provost of Montrose, came to Sweden with his brother George soon after
his
father’s death in 1628.There he founded
the Brattfors steel works at Ockelbo.His descendants continued to own the steel works until well into
the
19th century.

England.One early family had definite
English
origins.The
Petres were yeoman farmers at Torbryan in
Devon, going back to the late 1300’s.John Petre was “a rich tanner of Torbryan” in the early 1500’s.His son John was a founder member of the
Exeter merchant adventurers in the 1560’s.

Another son Sir William made it to
London and the Tudor court, serving as Secretary of State for four
monarchs
from Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth.He
acquired
Ingatestone
Hall in Essex at the time of the
dissolution of the monasteries.He
established it as a Catholic refuge which it has remained under the
Petre
family until the present day.

The
Petries of Lewisham in Surrey had Scottish origins, however.The Rev. Robert Petrie grew up on the
Scottish borders and had previously been a minister in Dumfries.He died in Lewisham in 1791.

“In
Lewisham church there is a monument to
his widow Margaret, showing her dying in the arms of Religion supported
by
Faith and Hope.”

Two of their sons
prospered in India, John in Bengal and William in Madras:

John
returned the richer.He became an MP and a
slave owner with
plantations in the new colony of Tobago.

but
William had the more distinguished
descendants, most notably Flinders
Petrie the father of Egyptian archaeology.When
Flinders died in 1942,
he donated his head - and hence his brain - to the Royal College of
Surgeons in
London where it is now stored.

Most
Scottish Petries, however, were to be found closer to Scotland, in
northern
England.Charles Petrie from Fife, for
instance, developed his family fisheries business in Liverpool where he
served
as its mayor in 1901 and was made a baronet in 1918.His son Charles was a historian, his grandson
Peter a British diplomat.
America.The Petries of Herkimer
county, New York were
German immigrants from the Palatinate who had made their home at German
Flats
in the Mohawk valley in the early 1700’s.Catherine Petrie married Johan Herkimer around 1720.William Petrie was a surgeon in Nicholas
Herkimer’s brigade during the Revolutionary War.The
family history was traced in Hazel Patrick’s
1979 book The Mohawk Valley Petrie and
Allied Families.

The origins of Alexander Petrie of South Carolina are
uncertain.Some suspect that he came
from French Huguenot roots.He was the
premier silversmith of Charleston from the 1740’s until his death in
1768.His son Edmund was a suspected
Loyalist
during the Revolutionary War.Milton Petrie’s origins were Jewish.His parents had arrived from Russia and were
running a pawn shop in Salt Lake City when he was born in 1902.He made a fortune from a chain of retail
stores in New Jersey, which he supplemented through canny investments
in real
estate and stocks.

Canada.
Two Petrie British officers settled in Canada.

Nova Scotia.George Petrie
was a British soldier in Canada in the 1780’s,
probably Scottish, who was entitled to a land grant because of his
service.He took up this land grant in
1789 with his wife Isabel at Sydney in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.Fort Petrie, named after them, exists there
today.

Petrie descendants on Cape Breton are sizeable, including the mid-19th
century descendants of James Petrie at Glace Bay.Sergeant
John Petrie of Glace Bay died on the
Western front during World War One in 1916.

Daniel Petrie, born in Glace Bay in
1920, came to New York in the 1960’s where he made his name as a movie
and TV
director.His
family expanded there to include two directors (Daniel Petrie and his
son
Donald), a television movie producer (Dorothea Petrie), a screenwriter
(Dan
Petrie Jr.), a movie studio executive (June Petrie), and an actress
(Mary
Petrie).

Ontario. Another British officer who had received a
Canadian land grant was the Scotsman Captain Archibald Petrie.He was a purser on ships patrolling Lake
Ontario during the War of 1812.His
grant was in Cumberland township, Ontario where he became a prominent
merchant
and politician.He gave his name to
Petrie Island on the Ottawa river.

Australia. Andrew
Petrie
from Fife came out with
his family to Australia in 1831,first
staying in NSW and then moving, some ten years later, to the emerging
town of
Brisbane in Queensland. There he started up his own construction
company.He was the pioneer architect and
builder of
the town.His name continues in Petrie,
a suburb and electoral division.His son John was the first mayor of Brisbane. Another
son Thomas was an explorer, grazier and
friend to Aborigines.
Select Petrie Miscellany

If you would like to read more, click on the miscellany page for
further stories and accounts:

Select Petrie NamesSir
William Petrewas
an English Secretary of State in Tudor times, from
Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth.
Andrew
Petriewas a
pioneer,
architect and builder in Brisbane, Queensland in the mid-1800’s.
Flinders Petrie
was an English Egyptologist of
the early 1900's and a pioneer of systematic methodology in
archaeologyand the
preservation of
artifacts.Select Petries Today

6,000 in the UK (most numerous
in Angus)

4,000 in America (most numerous in New York)

5,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Australia)

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